"Oh, that"—she smiled—"that was rather amusing, though not in the best taste. No; what I mean was on the last page. Read from 'whom the gods love.'"
"Do you mean this quotation?"
"Yes."
"'Life, though a good to men on the whole, is a doubtful good to many, and to some not a good at all.' Is that it?"
"Yes. What's the rest?"
"'To my thought it is a source of constant mental distortion to make the denial of this a part of religion—to go on pretending things are better than they are. To me early death takes the aspect of salvation.'"
"Now I ask you, Can you find nothing better than that to say to a girl?"
"It was not I who found it."
"You say it's George Eliot. Well, she had too much sense to present that view to a young girl. She put it in a diary. If you've nothing better to put into yours, so much the worse for you. Don't you know there are two ways of interpreting 'whom the gods love die young'?"
"Yes"—he smiled—"'young' when they die at eighty." And he looked at the living commentary.